Disclaimer: I don't own Metal Gear Solid (or anything Metal Gear for that matter,) and I don't own Max Steel. My profit from this is an exact figure of zero dollars.
Metal Gears, Nanoprobes, and a Word from our Sponsor
Chapter IV
by Alhazred
madarab20@hotmail.com
http://www.rockettownonline.com/~alhazred
"This is going to be patheticly easy."
"You have no appreciation for the art, my friend," Vamp regarded Psycho with a grin, a knife playing between his fingers. "Enjoy it. Rarely do... people of our caliber have a job so easy that we can relax."
"On the contrary, Fangs," Psycho's claw folded out and flexed a little, "I appreciate it a lot. There's just no relaxation when there's no challenge; even you can't possibly want that much target practice instead of something challenging to throw a blade at."
Vamp cocked his head. He hated to admit it, but Psycho did have a point. "Touché."
The sound of Ocelot's Colt spinning on his finger and thudding into the holster sounded against their voices. His right arm twitched for a brief moment, stopping when he clamped his other hand on it. "Let's just get this over with. Vamp, you said you wanted the roof."
"And so I do."
With that, Vamp turned, ran exactly two steps, and leapt into the air. His coat fanning out behind, he soared into the sky almost as if he were flying, completely unhindered by gravity until just above the roof.
His stunt got the attention of the guard at the front gate. Ocelot shot him as he walked outside of his station.
Once on the roof, Vamp took a quick look around; there were a pair of security guards walking around here, but they had knives sticking out of their heads before they even turned toward the sound of his landing.
Downstairs, Psycho had already finished crushing the front door guard to death with his claw. Ocelot was happy to walk in rather nonchalantly once his cyborg compatriot had thrown the fresh corpse through the doors.
As far as he was concerned, the game was on.
---
"In the name of God, impure souls of the living dead shall be banished into eternal damnation. Amen."
Berto finally gave in to the temptation to look at what was on the TV screen. "What are you watching, anyway?"
The rain had turned into a full-fledged thunderstorm outside, and the wind would occasionally rock the van a little. Fortunately, it was soundproof. All of the noise was coming from the inside. Otacon, however, didn't mind. "It's Hellsing, and I happen to enjoy it. Not much of an foreign film fan, are you?"
"Films, yes," answered Berto. He went back to typing at his laptop, trying to ignore Otacon at the other end of the table. "Animation, no. What are you doing, anyway?"
"I'm hacking into Amazon.com," the engineer raised a fist, but lowered it before he could smash his keyboard to bits, "and trying to find a replacement engine for the Kasatka I can pilfer. And don't you dare lecture me on stealing, I have quite enough people thinking I'm a terrorist for blowing up Metal Gears as it is."
Berto raised his hands in defense. "Hey, I didn't say a word!"
"Sorry," Otacon pushed his glasses up, "I don't take criticism as well these days."
And Berto just had to know. "How are you going to find parts for a Russian military aircraft on the Internet?"
"Civilian model, same thing." Otacon's eyes lit up; the joy on his face was more apparent then if he'd screamed "eureka!" Apparently, he'd found what he was looking for.
"You know, you should've let me look at it," Berto went on typing, fed up with the encryption levels on the optical disc. It was all in the hands of his own personal hacking apps now, but at least a quarter of the disc's space was dedicated to encryption protocols and it was an annoyingly sluggish process. "I probably could've fixed it."
Otacon's answer was a muted laugh. "I think that'd be a little out of your league."
"Oh really," Berto grew furious in the span of one-point-five seconds. A good old-fashioned brawl of intellect with another scientist was always a welcome challenge. Especially if it was with the kind that had developed a reflex for looking down upon his younger peers. "This coming from the guy that thinks Transphasics is a crock!"
"It is a crock!" Otacon insisted, glaring at the younger man over his laptop. "Just because it worked once doesn't mean it's sound!"
Thinking of a particularly nasty comeback, Berto jabbed his finger in Otacon's direction. "And I suppose everyone who designs things has absolutely no idea what they're for until it gets to the point where millions of lives could be lost?"
"That's a low blow!" Otacon jumped to his feet and pointed right back. "Besides, at least I meet women in my line of work!"
"So do I!" Berto shouted back. Rachel and Kat counted, as far as he was concerned. Heck, so did Dragonelle.
"That like me!" added Otacon.
Caught without a response, Berto forcibly stared back at his screen and typed more. Accusing the other party of lying never got anywhere, and he couldn't very well invent girlfriends that he'd never had. Rather, he muttered an insult with profoundly unforeseen consequences. "Su madre no cuenta, usted demented otaku."
Otacon's eyebrows pivoted downward, and for the briefest of moments, his eyes looked like windows into Hell itself.
---
"Va al infierno usted excusa apesadumbrada para un ingeniero!"
"What in God's name is going on," Kat yawned, peering out of her room. The dark circles under her eyes were very profuse.
"Hah, usted primero, muchacho nuclear!"
That was most certainly Berto's voice, and it was definitely coming from the living room. So Kat shambled in the direction. The slider into Josh's room had been open in the first place, and Snake was just rising from the place on the floor Josh had generously offered, away from Berto's supposed snoring. That would've meant more if Berto hadn't pulled an Otacon and failed to notice it was long past bedtime.
Snake followed after Kat, and not long after, Josh followed him. The sight that greeted the trio was a wholly mind-numbing one. At one end of the table stood Berto, propped up by his crutch, at the other end stood Otacon, his veins popping out of his neck.
"Mayo su de las ecuaciones cálculo nunca correctamente!" Otacon smashed his fists on the table.
Berto, in turn, banged the end of his crutch on the floor and pointed at his nemesis. "Tu madre es un hámster!"
"I didn't know Berto could talk like that," said Kat.
His face unchanging from the fatigue of being woken out of a sound sleep by the yelling, Snake added, "I didn't know Otacon could speak Spanish. Japanese, maybe."
Raising his laptop over his head, Otacon yelled, "muerte, infiel!"
In response, Berto tossed his crutch up, caught the bottom, brandished it like a baseball bat, and screamed "voy a golpear su cabeza adentro, y no significo el que esta' en sus hombros!"
When Berto swung his improvised weapon down and put a dent in the table, Josh understood why he'd asked for a metal crutch. Otacon's laptop fell out of his hands and he dived out of the path of another swing. Unfortunately, he ended up diving into Kat, sending the two of them toppling to the floor.
"You are so lucky I'm tired," Kat blinked, shoving the engineer away.
Meanwhile, Berto's momentum carried his blunt object on a trajectory that doubled as a collision course for Snake's head. Deciding he didn't want to deal with a headache at the moment, Snake raised an arm and caught said blunt object in his hand. "You're just begging me to break the other one, aren't you?"
Berto tossed a fairly weak smile. Still on the floor, Otacon called out, "Peda sa rynt, oui hyhu vnayg!"
"That's not even Spanish," Berto glared down.
"Okay, I think it's time for bed, guys," Josh scratched his head. He grabbed Otacon under the arms, and Kat, agreeing with this course of action, assisted him by grabbing the engineer's legs.
"Hey!" Otacon protested, to no avail.
Seeing all of this, Snake caught on. Still holding onto it, he took Berto's crutch away from him, picked him up, and slung him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. The words Berto yelled at him in Spanish sounded fairly nasty.
After the other two had deposited Otacon on the floor of Berto's room, Snake deposited Berto himself on the bunk. The three of them dashed out and flung the slider closed before either of them could even stand up, and Kat, in a highly abrasive fashion, proceeded to jam the slider like that with Berto's crutch.
More expletives followed from inside the room, but no one cared.
"Now," Snake announced, "we sleep."
"I hear that," Josh said.
Berto and Otacon grew louder, but they were, for the moment, ignored as Kat and Josh flopped down onto their respective beds, and Snake resumed his lying on Josh's floor.
After five minutes, however, Snake decided that the noise was far too much for his own tastes, and he closed the slider. The absurd noises coming from elsewhere in the van were further blotted out, and Snake resumed the fetal position on the floor.
"You know," Josh considered, "they're going to start asking if Vamp's rubbed off on us if that's closed."
Snake just yawned. "Good for them. They're making so much noise we can say even more." He let out a sigh. "Geeks..."
More thumping echoed through the van, followed by the sound of Kat hitting the wall and her voice yelling, "Shut up in there, will ya!"
"That's quite an image," Josh flopped onto his bed. "So why do you do it?"
"What?" Snake blinked, knowing instantaneously what Josh meant. "Why does everybody ask that? Why are you asking me this at four in the morning?"
"Professional curiosity?" Josh chuckled. "I dunno, maybe I'm just that tired."
"Same reason you do what you do, Kid," Snake rolled over and sat against the wall, determining that between this and the war of the nerds going on, he wasn't going to get back to sleep right away. "At least, I assume you do it because you think it's right. And I wouldn't mind knowing how those little tricks of yours work."
"Tricks? Hey," Josh pouted, "I'd like to see you punch through a few tons of solid rock."
"You know, back in my day," Snake started. His voice faded, and he mouthed the words over a few times. "I can't believe I just said that. Back in the day, we had to get things done without a fancy gimmick."
"Is that so, Solid Snake?"
"That's not a gimmick, that's a code name," Snake retorted.
Josh considered that. "Good point. But it's not like it makes life easier, it just means terrorists start equipping themselves better in retaliation. You don't want to know what it feels like to get blasted with an EMP when your nanomachines keep you alive."
"Maybe," Snake conceded. "But then, Otacon and I have nanomachines and we don't jump twenty feet into the air or get up from underneath very large steel girders. So, you run out of... that energy I can barely pronounce, you die. My dose of FOXDIE kicks in, I die. I think it's well established that no matter what, this line of work gets you killed."
"You're never worried it'll all come down to something important, and you'll drop dead right there?" Josh asked. He wasn't entirely sure he could deal with that.
His eyes were on the wall, but Snake's mind drifted to another time, another place. "No, I can't die yet. There are too many things I have to do. After that, we'll see."
"I think the same thing," Josh chuckled. "All the time. Who says the old generation has nothing in common with the new?"
Snake glared daggers. "Who are you calling 'old?'"
Wasting no time in shifting his gaze back to the ceiling, Josh made a face and answered, "no one."
"Good boy," Snake nodded. He peered around the room when Berto and Otacon started shouting at each other again, Josh's expression becoming worse.
"Does Otacon kiss his mother with that mouth?" the athlete chuckled.
"Actually ye- wait, you can make that out?" Snake's eyebrows went up. "Got a directional microphone handy?"
Throwing a smile, Josh replied, "nope, just good ol' fashioned nanotech."
"Funny, Otacon's d. mics kept getting feedback when we pointed 'em at you."
Josh sat up so fast he banged his head on the ceiling. "Ow! You've been pointing directional microphones at my head?"
"Well we didn't want to hear your heartbeat," Snake blinked, "we wanted to hear what was coming out of your mouth."
Rubbing his head behind the ear without even realizing it, Josh answered, "no wonder I've been getting migraines. You've been making feedback in my nanoprobes!"
"So that's what that annoying buzzing sound was," Snake said. "Gimmick backfiring, eh?"
Suddenly remembering all of his recent power drains, Josh answered, "are you kidding? It's been backfiring ever since the Feds handed my Dad a cease & desist order for N-Tek's espionage division."
"The FBI did what? But the NSA is the only... and you'd have top level to shut down... black ops..." Snake trailed off. The implication was frightening. Had N-Tek been that close to something?
"What?" Josh prodded.
"You ever hear of the 'Patriots,' Kid?"
Josh's eyebrow went up. "Not until I read Romanenko's book..."
So much for sleep, Snake thought. "Well, first of all, that stuff on the news a few months ago about the Big Shell washing ashore is total crap..."
---
"So this ninja, Ya'know," Otacon said, his laptop making a cheerful Windows 'ding!' sound. "Hey, I'm in. So it was Snake's old war buddy, you know, he just throws me in this locker while he and Snake start hitting each other."
He did, of course, leave out the part about wetting himself. The black eye and bandage on his forehead made it easy to look like he was in pain, rather then lying through his teeth.
Berto's blatant off-color spots lined his cheek instead, in the form a distinct, hand-shaped red area. The bandage here was on Berto's hand, right behind the knuckles, where what looked like a bite mark seemed to be peeking through one side.
"I was lucky to be a lab rat," Berto raised an eyebrow at the information his screen was displaying. "I met Josh while he was dying just after getting the Max Probes, all I had to do was push a button. Heh heh, one time he took out a ninja with a waffle iron, right? Kat was calling him 'Jackie Chan' for a week!"
The uproar of laughter woke Kat up once more. Seeing that it was now daylight, she got dressed in record time and promptly stormed out of her room. "Will you people please shut the hell... up?"
Things just kept getting weirder and weirder. Aside from their... wounds, Otacon and Berto looked completely normal, sitting at the table again, working at their laptops. Otacon looked at her and pushed his glasses up. "Jeez, we're just sharing old war stories."
"Yeah," Berto agreed. "Hey Kat, you remember the time Max bonked that ninja with the waffle iron?"
"Sooooo," Kat blinked, "you're done killing each other?"
"Yep," Berto went back to his work.
"We got it out of our system," Otacon added. "Hey, our engine should be here in about ten minutes."
"And my decryption programs just got the disc open," Berto cracked his knuckles. "Now, let's see what's on here..."
"Techies, can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em," Kat said to herself. "So. Where're the others?"
"Outside," Berto answered.
Otacon closed his laptop. "Working out their daily buildup of testosterone."
Equally interested in the contests of the ninja's disk, Otacon assumed an optimal reading-over-shoulder position behind Berto.
Making a vague swirling motion next to her head with one finger, Kat turned around and went outside.
The sight of Josh and Snake sparring was, at least, somewhat normal. Poor Josh, he's gotten knocked down so many pegs lately... heh heh...
Josh was having about as much luck against Snake as she had the night before, though he was faring better then that rather disastrous incident in the old transphasic generator.
"So this Arsenal Gear thing," Josh asked, putting two and two together, his forearm coming up to stop Snake's punch at the elbow, "that was what ran aground and busted up Federal Hall?"
"Yep," Snake answered, crouching down to avoid Josh's roundhouse kick. "And the highest-ranking Patriots have been dead for a century."
"Psycho's been dead four... five," Josh counted, throwing a kick to Snake's midsection. Snake caught his foot. "Seven times, I think it is now, and he's still around."
"My genetic twin lives in Revolver Ocelot's arm," Snake tossed Josh's leg up, sending him into an involuntary back flip, but Josh managed to land on his feet. "Trust me, I know death is just a minor setback these days."
Snake lunged, but Josh flung his arms down and flipped into the air just high enough to clear Snake's head and land behind him. Having a pretty good idea of what the other's next move would be, Snake hopped off the ground just as Josh's leg tried to sweep him from his feat. Landing before Josh fully recovered, Snake rammed his shoulder into Josh's chest, the force of his weight sending the latter to the edge of the lawn where it dropped off into the pond.
Stumbling at the sudden change of slope, Josh was powerless to stop Snake from poking him. He promptly fell backward, bounced off the little pier Kat had knocked him off of not long ago, and splashed down.
Kat herself found this extraordinarily humorous, and couldn't stop herself when Josh's head poked out of the water, something vaguely resembling crabgrass matting down his hair and oozing its way down his head. "I seem to recall you being in this situation before, McGrath. I guess you haven't improved much since then?"
Plucking the offending vegetation from his head, Josh glared daggers at her. "Gee, thanks for returning the distraction favor, Kat."
Snake just cracked his knuckles. "Want some cheese with that whine, Kid?"
A smirk played across Josh's face, and he sunk back underwater. A light green glow shimmered on the surface for a second, and Kat realized what he was about to do. "Don't you dare..."
Unfortunately for her, Max Steel soon leapt out of the pond, dragging as much water with him as he possibly could. Snake's reflexes got him out if the way, but Kat got drenched.
"If I didn't just wake up," she decided as Max powered down, "I would kill you."
Before he could respond, the sound of an engine got their attention. Otacon came outside to meet the UPS truck as if he were expecting it. Less then a minute later, the truck was pulling away, leaving a very large box on the pavement.
"Otacon," Snake started, "do I even want to know?"
"It's just the new engine for the Kasatka," the engineer raised his eyebrows. He practically tore the top of the massive box off and dove into the Styrofoam peanuts.
"And... you signed for this how?" Snake said.
"With a little squiggle on the dotted line," Otacon answered, standing back up. He rummaged through the peanuts one more time when he realized his glasses had fallen off. "Like they ever look for an actual name?"
"And you're going to lift that onto the chopper yourself?" Kat scratched her head.
Looking from the Kasatka to the heavy engine and back, Snake and Otacon let out a perfectly synchronized sigh.
"Hey," Josh turned into Max once more. "All ya gotta do is ask."
---
"This is deep," Berto decided. The disc may not have been filled to capacity, but it was filled with intrigued. "Complete schematics on Metal Gear RAY and Arsenal Gear, complete research data on FOXDIE and Naomi Hunter's alterations... whoa."
And it made absolutely no sense. He understood the data easily enough, but the reasoning... why did they need this? Okay, it told him the Big Shell conspiracy theory floating around on the Internet was true, but Snake could've easily told him that. And FOXDIE...
Then he remembered Romanenko's book, and bolted out of his chair. Limping over to Kat's modest bookshelf, he dug out In the Darkness of Shadow Moses one more time and re-read the ending. A light bulb went off above his head. FOXDIE was simple by its nature, and the data on the disc defined the perimeters that identified it. A small number of Josh's Max Probes, some modification to disable their reproduction systems while seeing those perimeters as a virus... and Solid Snake would be cured.
A beep from his laptop brought Berto back into the realm of reality, and once he saw the screen, he wasted no time in opening Jefferson's e-mail.
Message read and processed, he grabbed his crutch and limped out the door, only to be greeted by the sight of Max and Otacon balancing against the Kasatka on a single ladder, Kat trying to hold it steady for them. Otacon made one last tweak to the new engine, and called down, "Snake, try it now!"
Inside the cockpit, Snake did just that. Immediately, the engines flared to life and the rotors started spinning smoothly. Hearing this, Snake shut it off.
Max hopped down from the ladder, and Berto wasted no time in dragging his teammates inside.
"Good as new!" Otacon chirped, tossing his wrench to himself after climbing down.
"Where are they off to in a such a hurry," Snake wondered, watching Josh practically carry Berto back into the van. He and Otacon shared a look and a shrug before following them.
Team Steel in its entirety was, in fact, hunched right over Berto's laptop, looking at what was most certainly mission data.
"Fertilizer plant, Mexico, terrorists... why'd Dad send this to us," Josh asked.
"I'll give you one guess," Berto answered, bringing up the attachment that had been sent on the e-mail. It was an image taken by a security camera, and a poor one at that. Someone was walking in the background, but the face was too blurry to make out. The man in the foreground was too close for his face to be in the shot, but the metal of his right arm was a dead giveaway.
Josh and Kat almost hit the roof. "Psycho!"
Snake and Otacon just watched from the side, more then a little amused that they weren't the ones going bonkers over the hideous absurdities in their jobs this time.
"Can you figure out who the other guy is, Berto?" Kat squinted at the picture.
"Been running an enhancement since the mail came in," Berto brought up another window, this one displaying the enhanced image and the collected data. "Look's like it's already ran through the database. Whoa-ho! Real name unknown, alias: Shalashaska, aka Revolver-!"
"Ocelot!" Snake and Otacon yelled. They were trying to shove Max and Kat away less then a second later, desperate for the information.
"Where is that!" demanded Otacon.
"Down boys," Kat replied. She gestured to Berto's screen. "This involves us too. We'll share. Um... will we share?"
"I don't see why not," Max added. "Smiley's enough trouble as it is, I'm not eager to add the celebrities of Shadow Moses without help."
Snake tilted his head a little. "Let's get one thing straight, Kid. You are helping me."
Max's eyebrows went up. "How is that different?"
"Because I'm the veteran, and I like that fact," Snake crossed his arms.
"It is so too early for male egos," Kat yawned. Rubbing her eyes, she had a thought. "So, how are we gonna do this? Helifoil only holds two. Think that bucket of bolts of a Kamov'll actually get into the air?"
"We did just fix it," Otacon answered. "I don't see why not. I'll go prep it for flight."
"Ooohhhh no!" Kat proclaimed, shoving Otacon to a seat at the table. "You're staying here, I'll fly the thing, I'm gonna go insane if I don't get outta here. Besides, you and Berto can put those brains of yours together and be twice as brilliant."
"But I've had VR training!"
"Yeah, yeah," Kat rolled her eyes, "I've had real training. Besides, who can't fly a Kamov?"
Snake seemed to resent that.
---
Chapters five and six are up at my website, follow the link up top or in my profile.
I know absolutely no Spanish, so I'm forced to rely on things like Google's language tools and AltaVista's babelfish; forgive the horrible translations.
Thanks to Ellen Brand for the line about the waffle iron, and lord knows what else that's slipping my mind...
Su madre no cuenta, usted demented otaku. - Your mother doesn't count, you demented otaku.
Va al infierno usted excusa apesadumbrada para un ingeniero! - Go to Hell, you sorry excuse for an engineer!
Hah, usted primero, Muchacho Nuclear! - Hah, you first, Nuclear Boy!
Mayo su de las ecuaciones cálculo nunca correctamente! - May your equations never compute properly!
Tu madre es un hámster! - Your mother is a hamster!
Muerte, infiel! - Die, Infidel!
Voy a golpear su cabeza adentro, y no significo el que esta' en sus hombros! - I'm going to bash your head in, and I don't mean the one on your shoulders!
Peda sa rynt, oui hyhu vnayg! - Bite me hard, you nano freak! (As Berto points out, this is not Spanish. Otacon is speaking in the Al Bhed language from Final Fantasy 10.)